[RF] The Woman on the Bank
The first time Carter saw the woman, she was standing ankle-deep in mud at the edge of the river.
They passed her just after dusk, running north through water the color of old coffee. The PBR's engines shoved a white wake against the mangroves.
She wore a pale blouse and dark trousers. Bare feet. Black hair loose over one shoulder.
“Friendly-looking,” Harlan said from the stern.
Velez laughed. “Go ask for her number.”
“My type has shoes.”
Danny watched her from the forward gun mount until the bend took her out of sight. A strip of red cloth was knotted around his left wrist, some cheap thing he'd come back from Saigon with and wouldn't explain.
Carter checked the channel, the gauges, then his men without thinking.
Danny at the bow. Velez portside. Harlan aft.
He'd been doing it for months. Count your men. Check your fuel. Watch the banks. Then do it again.
Something about the woman bothered him.
She hadn't watched the boat.
She had watched him.
Behind Carter's seat, the transistor radio whispered through static. They'd found Hanoi Hannah twenty minutes earlier and left her on because Harlan liked answering her.
Her English came calm and careful through the hiss.
“How are you, GI Joe?”
Harlan leaned toward the radio. “Doing just fine, Hannah. Thanks for asking.”
Velez laughed.
She continued, telling American soldiers they were poorly informed about how the war was going, sent thousands of miles from home by men who lied to them.
“See, that's where you're wrong,” Harlan said. “I don't understand shit back home either.”
Carter smiled.
Hannah started talking about American casualties when the signal dragged sideways. Her voice thinned until it hardly sounded human.
Then:
“...the river remembers...”
Static cracked.
Her ordinary broadcast returned without missing a beat.
Harlan frowned. “Well. That's cheerful.”
Carter looked at the radio.
“You hear that?”
“Hear what?”
“The river.”
Velez stared at him. “What river?”
Danny was still looking back toward the bend.
They saw the woman again twenty-three minutes later.
Carter knew because he'd checked his watch the first time.
Several miles upriver.
Same blouse. Same trousers. Same hair.
She stood on the western bank with her feet sunk in black mud.
Harlan's grin disappeared.
“Oh.”
Danny turned from the gun but wouldn't look at her.
“Keep going.”
“You know her?” Carter asked.
“No.”
Danny rubbed his thumb over the cloth around his wrist.
“Old guy in Mỹ Tho told me about women you see where you're not supposed to see them. Hồ tinh, I think. Fox spirits.”
“Something that looks like a woman?”
“They get you to follow them.”
Harlan leaned against the rail. “Still waiting on the bad part.”
The woman raised one arm and crooked two fingers toward herself.
Carter shoved the throttles forward.
As they passed, the setting sun threw her shadow across the water.
There was something behind it.
Long. Narrow.
The wake shattered the shape.
Carter looked back.
The woman had lowered her hand.
She wasn't watching him anymore.
She was staring into the river beside the boat.
The radio popped.
“...some men travel farther than others...”
Static stretched Hannah's voice.
“...some do not leave at all...”
Then she was discussing American losses again.
Danny turned the volume down.
Darkness closed around them.
Carter rubbed his eyes and tried to remember when he'd last slept. He came up with a cot beneath a ceiling fan, but couldn't decide whether that had been two nights ago or before Saigon.
He checked the fuel.
They had enough.
The problem was he couldn't remember refueling.
“Smoke?” he asked.
Harlan patted his pockets. “You got the pack.”
Carter found the Lucky Strikes beside his knee, lit one and held the pack behind him.
Nobody took it.
When he turned, Harlan already had a cigarette between his lips.
“You take one?”
Harlan looked confused. “What?”
“Never mind.”
At the bow, Velez cleaned beneath his thumbnail with the tip of a cartridge, a habit he'd had since Da Nang.
Danny shifted beside the gun.
His sleeve brushed the metal and left a dark handprint.
“Danny.”
“What?”
“Your arm.”
His sleeve was wet from cuff to elbow.
“Spray.”
They hadn't taken spray over the bow in ten minutes.
Carter looked at the red cloth around Danny's wrist.
In the darkness it looked almost brown.
Danny pulled his sleeve over it.
“Watch the river.”
The radio came alive.
Nobody touched it.
Carter turned.
He remembered switching it off.
Hannah's voice surfaced through static.
American boys—
Hiss.
—no one waiting—
Then, softly:
“...four men...”
Carter froze.
“...but the river counts differently...”
The signal vanished.
Carter snapped the radio off.
“Leave it,” Danny said.
His face had gone pale.
The woman returned before midnight.
This time she was walking.
The PBR was moving close to twenty knots, but she kept pace along the bank without running.
A tree slid between them.
She appeared on the other side.
Another tree.
There again.
“Jesus Christ,” Harlan whispered.
Danny climbed down from the gun.
“She wants you off the boat.”
Carter stared at her. “How is she doing that?”
“Doesn't matter.”
The woman stopped.
Carter turned to keep her in sight.
Danny grabbed his shoulder.
“Don't.”
His hand was ice cold.
Water ran from his fingers and struck the deck.
Danny stared at the drops.
“Stay with us.”
Something tightened behind Carter's eyes.
He had heard that before.
An engine.
Gunfire.
Someone shouting.
Then it was gone.
Behind him, Harlan said, “We don't leave our men.”
Carter turned.
“What'd you say?”
Harlan blinked. “Nothing.”
Something struck the hull.
Then again.
Carter leaned over the side.
A face rolled beneath the black water.
White eyes. Open mouth. Hair drifting like weeds.
“There’s somebody in the water.”
No one moved.
Danny stared at Carter.
“Don't look again.”
From shore, the woman called:
“Hey.”
One word, somehow clear over both engines.
Behind her, a narrow path disappeared into the trees.
She pointed toward it.
Carter pulled the throttles back.
Danny stepped forward.
“No.”
“I just want to see what she wants.”
“No, you don't.”
There was panic in Danny's voice now.
Not fear of the woman.
Fear of Carter stopping.
Harlan and Velez stood.
“We don't leave our men,” Harlan said.
Carter looked at Danny.
Black mud covered the cuff of his trousers.
“Danny?”
The radio hissed.
Still switched off.
Through the static Hannah whispered:
“...you went back...”
Carter stopped breathing.
The broadcast returned for a few seconds, then broke again.
“...when the river took one...”
Danny stepped toward him.
“Carter.”
The radio crackled.
“...they told you to keep moving...”
And the night split open.
Danny went over on a hard bend.
Carter remembered the flash of red cloth first.
Danny's hip hit the rail. His hands lost the gun mount.
Then he was gone.
“Man overboard!”
Danny surfaced in the wake, one arm raised.
Alive.
Muzzle flashes punched through the trees.
Harlan opened fire.
“Go!” he screamed. “Go, go, go!”
Danny disappeared behind them.
Carter looked at the channel ahead.
Then back.
Danny surfaced again.
His hand came up.
“We don't leave our men.”
Carter spun the wheel.
The PBR came around hard.
Harlan screamed at him to keep moving, but Danny was twenty yards away.
Ten.
Five.
His hand struck the hull.
Harlan leaned over the side.
“Got you!”
Danny reached up.
Their hands met.
Something heavy fired from shore.
White light filled the stern.
Metal screamed.
Carter hit the river.
Cold water swallowed him. Something caught his ankle. Another hand closed around his sleeve.
He kicked free and clawed toward light.
Then morning.
Carter lay in the mud coughing river water.
The PBR had lodged against roots offshore, stern burned black, railing torn away.
Nobody moved.
“Danny?”
Nothing.
“Harlan!”
A woman stood a few yards away.
Pale blouse. Dark trousers. Bare feet in the mud.
She held out one hand.
Behind Carter, Harlan shouted from the boat.
“Carter!”
He turned.
Harlan stood on deck, whole.
Velez beside him.
Danny too, red cloth bright around his wrist.
“Come on,” Danny called.
The woman shook her head.
Harlan shouted again.
“We don't leave our men!”
Carter pulled away from her hand.
And walked back into the river.
The memory released him.
Carter stood at the controls.
Alone.
Black scorch marks covered the stern. Half the railing was missing. Brown stains crossed the deck.
Harlan's seat was empty.
Velez's gun sagged on its mount, furred with rust.
The cartridge he'd been cleaning his nail with lay beside Carter's boot, green with corrosion.
“No.”
The radio whispered.
Static.
Then Hannah.
“...you know who stayed.”
Something scraped the hull.
Carter looked down.
Pale fingers curled over the side.
A swollen head rose from the water. River weed covered half its face. One eye was milk-white.
The other looked directly at him.
A small scar crossed the eyebrow.
Danny had gotten that scar from a bottle in Subic and spent two weeks claiming three Marines had jumped him.
“Danny.”
The corpse opened its mouth.
Water poured out.
A strip of red cloth floated from its wrist.
Carter stepped toward it.
You went back for him once.
Of course you would again.
“Carter.”
Harlan stood behind him.
All three were back.
Harlan by the stern. Velez against the gunwale. Danny beside the forward gun.
Clean uniforms.
Dry hair.
Exactly as Carter remembered them.
Danny took a step closer.
“Don't leave me.”
Outside the boat, wet nails scraped against metal.
Carter looked from the dry Danny to the dead one climbing aboard.
Velez rolled an unfired cartridge between his fingers.
“You made the turn.”
Carter's eyes burned.
“I know.”
Harlan looked toward shore.
“You came back for Danny.”
His expression softened.
“You gonna leave us now?”
The woman had moved into the shallows.
Ankle-deep.
No farther.
Her hand was out.
Moonlight stretched her shadow across the mud, and behind the human shape something long and narrow curved through the reeds.
A tail.
Carter looked at Danny's corpse climbing aboard.
Then at the woman.
He stepped over the side.
Water closed around his boots.
Danny screamed his name.
Carter kept walking.
Something caught his trouser leg. He kicked free.
Harlan cursed him.
Danny begged.
Then Velez called after him.
Just once.
“Boss.”
Carter stopped.
Count your men. Check your fuel. Watch the banks.
Do it again.
He nearly turned.
Instead, he took another step.
Then another.
The water fell below his knees, then his ankles.
He reached the bank.
The woman lowered her hand.
Carter looked back.
The ruined PBR sat empty in the current.
One pale hand still clung to its side.
A strip of red cloth circled the wrist.
The fingers loosened and slipped beneath the water.
When Carter turned again, the woman was gone.
Behind him, the river kept moving.
Carter did not look back again.